Harold Huber Movies

Sent to Sing Sing prison, influential crook Spencer Tracy is unregenerate and refuses to adhere to the rules. While in solitary confinement, Tracy reconsiders his attitude. Thanks to the correctional facility's compassionate warden (Arthur Byron), Tracy becomes a model prisoner, even refusing to participate in a jailbreak. The warden sets up a special program permitting selected prisoners a degree of freedom and even suggests allowing an occasional furlough. When Tracy's girl friend (Bette Davis) is hurt in an auto accident, he is given a 24 hour pass to visit her. It's a test case--if Tracy doesn't return, the warden will be discredited and replaced. While on the "outside," Tracy learns that his old rival (Louis Calhern) was responsible for his girl's injuries. Davis shoots the rival, who in turn fingers Tracy as the one responsible; the convict thus risks execution upon returning to the arms of the law. Based on the book by real-life Sing Sing warden Lewis E. Lawes, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing was remade in 1940 as Castle on the Hudson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jenny (Ruth Chatterton) becomes pregnant by a young man who is killed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Bearing her child in secret, Jenny gives up custody to a wealthy couple. The years pass, and through the auspices of a crooked politician (Louis Calhern), Jenny becomes the number one "madame" of San Francisco, with interests in several other illicit activities. Crusading district attorney Dan Reynolds Donald Cook decides to rid the city of Jenny's operations -- little suspecting that the notorious woman is actually his own mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this rough-and-tumble action comedy, Chuck Connors (Wallace Beery) and Steve Brodie (George Raft) are friendly rivals on New York's Bowery in the 1890s. Connors owns a fancy tavern and looks after a streetwise kid named Swipes McGurk (Jackie Cooper), while Brodie is a daredevil willing to do nearly anything to get the better of Connors. When both men fall in love with Lucy Calhoun (Fay Wray), who has fallen on hard times, Brodie takes her under his wing and helps get her back on her feet. Connors is furious that his rival has won her heart, so he goads Brodie into doing something spectacular to prove his love for her -- jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, for example. Reckless but not stupid, Brodie has no intention of making the jump and plans to use a dummy instead, but when Connors and his henchmen show up to make sure that Brodie doesn't back down, the dare is turned into a wager, and Brodie emerges the new owner of Connors' bar after successfully making the jump. In real life, George Raft and Wallace Beery were not nearly so friendly as their characters: Raft persuaded director Raoul Walsh to hire a number of his underworld cronies as extras, which irritated Beery no end. When the two actors had a fight scene, Beery refused to hold back, and the staged fistfight quickly turned into a for-real battle royale. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a prizefighter goes on the lam after he engages in fisticuffs with a reporter and believes that he has killed him. He ends up at a crippled children's home. The film is also called The Kid's Last Fight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Police Car 17 is one of a handful of non-westerns made for Columbia by cowboy star Tim McCoy. Motor patrolman Tim Conlon (McCoy) and his partner Bumps O'Neill (Ward Bond) vie for the attentions of Helen Regan (Evelyn Knapp), daughter of a fellow cop. Our hero not only wins Helen but also the undying admiration of his fellow lawmen through a series of incredible acts of heroism. All things considered, Police Car 17 is a western in modern dress. All that's missing is the final shootout at High Noon, but this is neatly compensated for by a climactic fistic battle in an abandoned garage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the earliest girls-in-prison yarns, Ladies They Talk About has everything but Ida Lupino as the warden--and had she been in Hollywood at the time, she would probably be here as well. Gun moll Barbara Stanwyck is thrown into San Quentin (which looks more like a summer resort than a house of detention), thanks to her involvement in a bank robbery and the machinations of D.A./preacher David Slade (Preston Foster). It isn't political ambition that motivates Slade: he's in love with Stanwyck, and hopes that her incarceration will rehabilitate her. Instead, Stanwyck becomes a hard-bitten prison-block leader, spearheading a jailbreak. When things go awry, she holds Slade responsible. Upon her release, she goes gunning for Slade, and doesn't realize that she's really in love with him until she nearly puts him six feet under. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two small-town youths head for the Big Apple and somehow get mixed up with mobsters during a visit to the title park in this episodic comedy drama filmed on location. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In a war-torn world, enemies of the United States use pacifists as pawns to insure that the Government doesn't spend too much on defense. This insures that when those enemies, looking a lot like Germans from WW I, finally invade, the US will be unable to defend itself. Sure enough the enemies attack and take over the country. While the story of this silent epic itself is intriguing, the history behind the film is perhaps even more so. It was made before the US got involved in WW I. Upon its release, the film generated a controversy rivaling that of Birth of a Nation because it contained such a strong call to arms. Producer Stuart Blackton believed that the US should join the Allies overseas and that was why he made the film. Former President Theodore Roosevelt agreed and was one of the film's staunchest supporters; using his influence, Roosevelt convinced Gen. Leonard Wood to loan Blackton an entire regiment of marines to use as extras. Uncorroborated legend has it that the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was among the civilian extras; he was billed as Lember Bronstein, of the Bronx. It is most unfortunate that most of the film has disintegrated over the years and only a few out-takes remain. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide